WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION?

 

(Posted on Linked In, today)

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This is a very interesting text about the International Space Station.

It appears to have been published with the agreement of the five countries operating it, whose maintenance cost seems to be in question, probably because of the Trumpian cuts on the NASA budget, or possibly because the Russians want to get out of the project as fast as possible.

Many things may happen with this experiment in space cooperation.

A) The station's fate may be to end in the fires of forced reentry in the Earth atmosphere (or possibly sent on a long voyage toward the Sun), in 2030 or earlier.

B) The Russian segment may be separated from the US one and attached to the Chinese space station, supposing that it is technically possible and supposing that China even agrees to such an eventuality.

C) Another possibility is for that segment to be sent in orbit around the Moon and used there in some way, by Russia alone, or as a joint operation between Russia and China, unless it is so degraded and old as to be simply worthless.

D) It may be sold to private enterprise, whether to a single company or a consortium of companies. The names of SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic came immediately to mind, but there are many others, and not just in the Western World.

E) It may be sold to India, possibly the best choice.

F) it may be sold to a consortium made up of the Indian Space Agency, with minority stakes by the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, or the Japanese Space Agency, or to all of those three, but all those space agencies are facing budgetary constraints, except for the first one.

G) It may be sold to Russia, but the US will probably object.

H) It may be sold to China, but the US will certainly object.

Is there any other possibilities?

https://www.eldiario24.com/en/humanit-begins-building-space-cities/22934/

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One billion US dollars to destroy the International Space Station in 2030 is an enormous amount of money that should be better used.

Sell the Internation Space Station to India, or at least the American segment, the one operated by NASA, the ESA and the Canadian Space Agency.

As for the Russian fragment, what does the Russian Federation wish to do with it?

https://spacenews.com/utilize-the-iss-as-a-resource-a-common-sense-fiscally-responsible-plan-leveraging-the-international-space-station/

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